Veracity
by UntoldStories113
Summary: He wasn't sure what irked him more - that Meg kept picking on them or that he seemed to be the only one concerned about it. (Part 5 and final entry of the Whimsical Affinity series. Written pre-movie, but shouldn't spoil much.)


**Timeline note:** Set before Riley's family even thinks of moving to San Francisco.

 **Note:** Fifth and final part of the Whimsical Affinity series. I wanted to get this out before I see the movie tomorrow ( _so hyped_!) so that it matches the other entries in tone.

I have no idea about Meg's character (assuming she's the girl with the headband and from Minnesota, though), so I'm making something up.

* * *

"Who does she think she is?" Anger growled.

He wasn't sure what irked him more - that Meg kept picking on them or that he seemed to be the only one concerned about it.

"She's our best friend, that's who she is!" Joy laughed as she pushed a button to make Riley playfully punch their friend's shoulder and almost dislodge the Scrabble pieces in the process.

"And she's funny," Disgust deigned to admit, even as she contemplated her fingernails as if hoping no one would realize just _how_ much she liked Meg's sense of humor.

Anger was fuming. "She just called us _lousy_!" he hissed.

"Well, we are," Sadness pointed out quietly. "We just spelled 'ale' when it could've been 'aloe' instead."

"Why do we even _know_ 'ale?'" Fear muttered with a suspiciously convenient sideways glance at him.

"Don't look at _me_!" Anger snapped. "Ask Dad!" The nerve! Maybe he should just _punch_ Fear.

"Your turn," Riley grumbled at Meg, who just laughed in response and then shielded her eyes with one hand against the bright sunlight filtering in through the window, so that she could start putting tiles onto the board with the other.

"Well, let's see what she's got!" Joy challenged, clapping her hands in anticipation. Which didn't do the gravity of the situation justice at all, of course.

"Can't she keep it down?" Anger complained, throwing up his arms. "Even _if_ she's better, she doesn't have to rub it in!"

"She's not gonna _do_ anything to us, Anger!" Fear chuckled, which was quite a statement, coming from that wimp.

"Faqir!" Meg exclaimed triumphantly.

"Faqir's not a word!" Anger boomed immediately.

"Sure it is!" Joy laughed. "It's a holy… er… someone. I think." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, it's a word, all right! And it's our turn now! What will we spell? Disgust, Fear, any idea?"

"Oh, stop it with the rhyming!" Disgust quipped as she tapped her lower lip in thought. "Er, 'bam.' As in, the sound word."

"Beam!" Fear cut in, sounding a little nervous.

"Obama!" Joy exclaimed brightly.

"Names are not allowed," Sadness reminded her with a little sniffle.

"Er, right," Joy chuckled as she operated the controls. "I'll try to get her to spell 'beam,' then!"

Fear gave a little shriek. "Ah, no, wait, we can actually spell 'amoebae'… aww, too late."

'Beam' got them a meager eight points, which didn't really manage to cheer Anger up in any way.

And it also didn't help that Meg looked so annoyingly eager when she bit her lip in concentration as she placed the next word's last tiles. "…mur… g… y… there! Zymurgy!"

"Oh, come _on_!" Anger burst out incredulously. "She just learned a Scrabble word list by heart!"

Fear quietly hummed to himself. "Maybe we should do that, too…"

Out of the corner of his eyes, Anger saw Disgust smirk at him. "Looks like _someone's_ bad at losing," she snickered in undisguised amusement.

Anger glared right back at her. "Yeah, and that _someone_ is _us_!" And with a look that, for some reason, didn't manage to penetrate her skull, he hammered his fist onto the console.

"Why don't we look that up in the dictionary?" Riley barked.

Meg was guffawing by now. "Oh, _seriously_ , Riley! I don't _need_ to cheat to beat you at Scrabble!"

"We'll see about that," Riley muttered bitterly as she flipped through the pages. But for a word starting with "zy," it didn't take her long to look it up - and indeed, Anger and the others got a good look at the fact that it _was_ , indeed, a word.

"She rigged that thing!" Anger huffed, crossing his arms, and his fury only intensified when the other four all started laughing at him almost simultaneously.

"Found it?" Meg chuckled, casually leaning her chin on one fist. "Would you mind continuing to lose, then? Winning by forfeit is boring, you know."

Anger narrowed his eyes at her. That little know-it-all was _quite_ spunky for her age.

But he really didn't get why the others weren't bothered by her attitude. The general merriment and gaggling was really getting on his nerves. Just because that girl was their best friend didn't mean that she could go and make fun of Riley!

Anger refused to let himself get swept away by the prevailing silliness. He'd make sure Meg stayed well within her rights, _oh_ , he'd make sure! She wouldn't know what hit her!

And neither did he, apparently. Maybe he should tune back into the game. "Xi?" he read, thunderstruck. This _had_ to be a joke.

"It's a greek letter," Sadness provided gravely.

Anger cracked his knuckles. "A letter is not a word!" he informed everyone around him, and Riley by smashing one of the buttons.

"If we use _letters_ now, I'll just play each tile on its own!" Riley complained.

Meg rolled her eyes. "You do that. And I'll just continue collecting points with _proper_ words, all right?"

"I don't think playing letters individually is allowed…" Fear piped up timidly.

Disgust rolled her eyes at him. "Riley was being sarcastic, genius."

"What do we spell?" Joy cut in, and they all fell silent as they tried to make sense of their current tiles.

"Should I help you brainstorm?" Meg offered mischievously.

Anger felt his left eye starting to twitch. Before anyone else could react, he'd pulled a lever to make Riley exchange all her tiles, muttering faintly to herself in irritation.

"Anger, don't be hasty!" Joy chuckled.

But he wasn't even listening; Meg playing the next word demanded all of his attention. "That's not how you spell queue!" he bellowed and hit one of the larger buttons with both hands.

"That's not how you spell queue!" Riley echoed dutifully.

Meg frowned. "Sure it is! You wanna look it up?"

"Anger, keep it together!" Joy admonished again as she flipped a switch to counteract his input.

"Nah, it's fine," Riley grumbled.

Meg stuck out her tongue in response. "You should just be glad I get all the difficult tiles!"

Disgust smirked at the screen. "The second 'q' was a blank, she's just being fancy now!"

"Damn right, she is!" Anger hissed, rubbing his hands. He vaguely registered Joy flinching and then hurrying to try and reach him… but too late. He pushed Sadness out of the way, and, letting out all his bottled up frustration in a single, piercing scream, he pushed the two main levers all the way up as an outlet for the sudden heat at the top of his head.

"Congratulations for being so smart, then!" Riley bit out and then wiped her own tiles off the table in one swift motion.

Meg fell silent at once.

Headquarters, however, immediately erupted into chaos.

"What are you _thinking_?" Disgust screeched.

Fear started running around in a circle in the background, shrieking his lungs out.

"She's gonna hate us," Sadness whimpered, her eyes growing wider and wider by the second and brimming with unshed tears.

Anger was already regretting this. There was no way around admitting that to himself. Why did he have to be so impulsive? Why couldn't he _ever_ keep it together? But what was done was done.

Even Joy seemed to have lost her cool for the moment, but then she slightly waved over her shoulder as she kept fixing the screen. "Err, Fear, would you mind? We need to be careful now."

Fear stopped his idiocy and dutifully ambled over to stand beside her at the console. He narrowed his eyes for a moment, sticking out the tip of his tongue in concentration, and then slowly pulled one of the handles.

"I… sorry," they heard Riley mumble. "I just don't like losing, and… You're just so good at this…"

Disgust nodded slightly. "Nice touch."

There was silence for a moment, and they all held their breaths in anticipation of Meg's reply.

Anger ignored them all in favor of fixing the screen.

Finally, Meg gave a sigh. "No, _I'm_ sorry. I guess I could've been a little nicer about it."

Joy whooped at the screen, and Fear let out a sigh so huge that he had to clutch the console for support.

"Well, that could've been worse," Disgust decided lightly.

Anger found himself smiling slightly. "Sure could've," he agreed. "Thanks," he grumbled in Fear's general direction almost as an afterthought.

"Should I make her pick up the tiles?" Sadness offered.

But apparently, Meg disagreed. "You know what, Riley? Let's play something else. I bet we can find something in which we're more evenly matched, huh?"

Anger nodded in satisfaction. Yeah, that was more like it. He had just remembered why they had labeled Meg a decent person so long ago. Even though she had to be upbraided every once in a while.

But that was fine. As long as Riley was okay, nothing else mattered all that much. And he really didn't mind getting his hands dirty if it ensured fair play.

* * *

 **Note:** I've never played Scrabble, by the way, so please do point it out to me if I got any of the rules wrong, or put any tiles in there that shouldn't have been there because of the letter distribution. ;)

(Yeah, don't ask why I wanted to use it, then. I have no idea.)


End file.
